Over the past week, Democrat Hillary Clinton has proclaimed her potential Republican rival John McCain to be the gold standard of wartime presidents. But lost in Clinton's fierce barrage against Barack Obama's national security experience is the inescapable conclusion about John McCain's own suitability as Commander-in-Chief. McCain's mistake-filled record, questionable judgment, calamitous misreading of history, […]

In a dramatic reversal of policy, President George W. Bush this week sent a personal letter directly to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. According to the text of the letter obtained by the AP and other media outlets, Bush urged Kim to come forward with the details of his nuclear plan. "I want to emphasize," […]

That wheezing sound you may have heard this week amid the chaos in Gaza, the carnage in Baghdad and the conflict in Lebanon was the final gasps of the Bush Doctrine in its death throes. Just two years after the President and his neo-conservative allies basked in the glow of their self-proclaimed moment of triumph, […]

In the Washington Post this New Year's Day, former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke has a compelling op-ed piece ("While You Were At War...") on the dangerous and rising opportunity costs of the Bush administration's Iraq fixation. In a nutshell, Clarke argues that while President Bush and the U.S. national security apparatus have been focused like […]

Just one day after President Bush forcefully defended his insistence on multilateral negotiations with North Korea, the White House has apparently okayed direct talks with envoys from Pyongyang. Speaking in Seoul on Saturday, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, Bush's point man on discussions with the North Koreans, signaled his willingness to meet directly with […]

In the latest flip-flop from President Bush, the administration is planning to reverse course on North Korea. After five-years of a failed policy that produced a nuclear-armed North Korea, Bush will give the go-ahead for direct bilateral negotiations with Pyongyang. Apparently, the President has finally decided to listen to John Kerry's advice in 2004. The […]

These are pretty heady days for the White House and its fellow travelers. In Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Ukraine, Egypt and even Saudi Arabia, movements for popular, democratic change seem to rule the day. The wisdom, rightness and prescience of the Bush Doctrine, they say, have been vindicated. In triumphant and self-congratulatory tones, the President and […]